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Oliver’s Story (Kildare).

A busboy, who may or may not be from Kildare.

“My family owned a pub in County Kildare, so, when I emigrated to New York, I wanted to keep that tradition going. Right away, I got a job as a busboy in a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn, which was owned by a lad from Roscommon at the time. I didn’t speak any Mexican though, and the only words I knew were from that Speedy Gonzalez cartoon. I used to shout ‘arriba, arriba, andale, andale’, at customers, thinking it meant ‘thank you’, when in actual fact, I was earning a reputation for myself as something of an ignorant racist with no manners. I am fairly ignorant, and my manners are atrocious, so I can’t argue with that, but I’m no racist. Sure once I went out with a girl from Belfast, and I even have a few Shakira songs on my iPod, and I think she’s black. Because of all that though, the tips were shite, and I ended up living in a tent just off the Brooklyn-Queens expressway for nearly a year. It was freezin’ and the squirrels kept getting in. I can’t wait to go back to Kildare”. – Oliver (27), Brooklyn, formerly Kildare.